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It's OK to keep AIMing
fooby12 writes "According to the Univeristy of Toronto instant messaging does not hurt the grammar of the people who use it. From the article: "With 80% of Canadian teenagers using instant messaging and adopting its unique linguistic shorthand, many teachers and parents are concerned about the medium's potential to corrupt kids' grammar. But instant messaging doesn't deserve its bad reputation as a spoiler of syntax, suggests a new study from the University of Toronto.""
My first thought, of course, was:
{o,o}
|)__)
-"-"-
O RLY?
{o.o}
|)_(|
-"-"-
YA RLY
{o,o}
(__(|
-"-"-
NO WAI!
(Courtesy of the usual suspects)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
What changes when people write on Messenger is mainly spelling. Spelling is part of the lexicon, and the lexicon is not "grammar". Grammar consists of phonology, morphology, and syntax, and I've never seen any of those parts of the English language being butchered by netspeak.
The title of the story has it all wrong. 'lol' does not require an exclamation mark. It is implied. These lingusts should learn how to IM. lol
i wuz wurried that im'n 2 much wuz m/king me 4get gd gremmer.
I've used AIM and IRC excessively in the past few years, and it has led me to getting a nearly perfect score on my English SAT exams. Just because some p30p3l tlk lik this dosnt meen that omg all of u r going 2 be liek th1s. Some people may actually improve based on the widespread use of IMs, just like emails or passing notes in class...
- dshaw
Is much worse for spelling than instant messaging ever was. If I spell a word wrong and it gets fixed then I never know I spelled it wrong. I doubt there are many people out there who think they are typing correcting when really they are using net speak.
Dooom
My mom always complained, and I've finally matured enough to see why. I used to have decent hand writing. But now that I've gone thru comps sci in college and site 8 hours a day at work on a pc, my hand writing sucks. I find myself printing always, no cursive. I find myself abbreviating and using those stupid instant messaging shorthand. It's terrible. The most annoying part is I can type 100+ wpm, and can't write anywhere near that, so I am thinking about the next sentence before I've even handwritten the first ... and thus a lot of times I loose my thoughts. Good news for me though is that I don't think the art of good hand-writing is coming back anytime soon, so I think I'll be ok.
Well now I know this is BS, because whenever I am speaking to a Canadian they mispell common words like color and flavor! For some reason they put a u in between the o and the r. It must be some new l33t speak or something...
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
But my brain is 'asploding' from the posts so far in this thread with their 'lolz' and their 'plz' and their 'orly'. Get off my lawn, yada yada.
From a business perspective, I've seen college graduates emailing using the typical IM abbreviations -- but typically, when reminded that it's not appropriate, I'd say that the grammar of these new hires tends to be as good or better than some of what I see elsewhere. At least they've been communicating in a non-verbal format.
If anything, I find that those who have IM'd a lot tend to have an easier time of getting their message across clearly in emails -- maybe it's due to their understanding of the shortfalls of text communication.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The attribution of that quotation to Churchill is apocryphal. Furthermore, Churchill had no training in linguistics. If he did, he would have known that English has been placing prepositions at the end of sentences for centuries, for they are no longer strict prepositions but really coverbs much as like in, say, Hungarian. Also, it is the point of linguistics to be descriptive (explaining what's heard on the street without judgement), not prescriptive (telling people how to speak). You should really pick up Trudgill & Bauer's Language Myths (New York: Penguin, 1999) and you'll see just how naive your comment was.
I'll try tags in the future.
BAD headline! BAD!
NOT AIM!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
What makes them think that chatting is going to cause the kids grammer to be worse? After looking at some of the papers coming in from kids I don't think that their grammer could get much worse no matter what they did. Of course, some of the teachers that I know spend so much time chatting too, they probably think that writing like that is normal.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
telegram abbrvs not responsible for poor victorian grammar STOP shorthand essential part of communication STOP language shaped by effeciency STOP.
Children don't have to formally learn grammar. A child learning a language natively will by definition speak with perfect grammar even without schooling, because in the science of linguistics rules of grammar are based on what is heard in the vernacular of the language in question, not what some pundit sets down by fiat.
If you're asking whether children are still taught prescriptivist rules, that's a whole 'nother matter.
Of course, studies also show that 150 years ago English was a whole lot better spoken and written than it is today - you know, top hats and tea time and Ma'ams and Sirs all 'round. Hell, barkeeps in the Wild West talk more eloquently than I do (and I think that's the first time the word 'eloquently' has passed through my head in years). This is obviously due to instant messaging and IRC. If I lived in the US I'd be filing a lawsuit against... whoever maintains this series of tubes.
Blatently ripped from Eats, Shoots & Leaves :)
Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours?
Jill
Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill
People used to write telegrams in short, incomplete sentences in order to save money on the transmission by reducing the length of the message, and as far as I know it didn't hurt anybody's grammar.
I've been AIMing for years, and I can write a coherent sentance. In fact, with the latest speech-to-text programs, I don't even have to use AIM shorthand...i can just speak and dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.
And what were they considering to do about it? Ban IMing in Canada?
;).
What are kids going to do to increase their grammar if they can't IM their friends? Sure some will write stories, journals and poetry but that isn't going to be a majority of kids. If they aren't practicing language in one way or another than their language skills will be far worse than "tainted IM language."
This is just another case of "oh no, the internet is evil" just like rock and roll was evil in the '50s O_o (what would that be without IMing? two "O's" and an underscore?). Netspeak is almost like learning a second language, a lot easier to learn but it's more dynamic and creative than any other language that I know of and that could be because I only know a few spoken languages
Actually, I think using chat rooms when I was younger and ultimately IM-ing has made me a much better typist. It improved my skills so that I am able to type quickly and accurately. Poor grammar and writing skills exist whether you are using pen, pencils, paper, or computers. It is a sign of not caring, not of the medium. You can write shorthand, scribble on a scrap piece of paper, etc. just as easy as you can type gibberish.
. . .bussed to special schools to learn nothing.
Bingo! We have a winner.
KFG
One of the points a teacher once impressed on me is that the English language is a "living" language - new words and new usage are central to that definition as "living". The English language is a language of usage. If enough people use the language in a certain way, then that way of speaking or writing becomes acceptable. For example, I can google on a subject if I need more information. Erm, how do I AltaVista something? Oh, wait; AltaVista isn't defined as a verb nowadays, but Google is, or at least google is (Google is a proper name, of course).
Now, Latin and Hebrew are good examples of dead languages. One Rabbi I studied under told me that the closest you could come in Hebrew to saying "Jumbo Jet" might literally be translated as "big silver bird that flies fast". Those are dead languages; any unacceptable use of grammar or syntax is incorrect.
English, however, adapts and grows to accomodate the concepts and lifestyle of its users - hence, googling, IM'ing, and a whole host of other newfound verbs and nouns which weren't in the lexicon a decade ago. If online chat clients encourage people to find briefer ways to express themselves, perhaps this is simply English evolving into a more compact, precise form.
Hmm, perhaps, but when telegrams charged people on a per-character basis, they had a legitimate financial interest in abbreviating things. AIM slang is, in my opinion, nothing more than pure sloth.
Chaucer:
That it was May thus dremed me
In time of love and jollite
That al thyng gynneth waxen gay
For there is neither busk nor hay
In May that it nyl shrouded ben,
And it with new leves wryen.
These greves eke recoveren grene,
That dry in wynter ben to sen,
And the erthe waxeth proude withal
For swete dewes that on it falle . . .
'Tweener Net
in mAY i hd a drem
like a stry it seems
i luv it now lol
tht all that ssht is kewl
May has these prety leeves
Fck hey its green like sleves
Winter sukked so flipin cold
gimme a light i feel so old
i duno and i dont care
aint a shame that i live here
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"Doesn't get the joke" is being modded up as Insightful now??
I don't understand how the parent managed to make a confident proclamation about the attribution of the quotation, then completely failed to get the point of the quotation itself. Oh right...Slashdot.
Even though I wince at the egregious abuse of the language by my co-workers in the technical profession and their various bosses, their work is *light-years* ahead of what is 'average' in our society. We get a warped perspective working in an industry that's driven by skullwork; Even the people we consider disturbingly slow are actually, usually, above average. I'm forcibly reminded of this fact when I interact with various members of my family or my inlaws - being firmly entrenched in 'averageness'... it's even more distressing when they decide to craft emails and mass-mail them to the family. *shudder*.
Thinking outside my Head
I've always considered that an absurd example of the absurdity of avoiding ending sentences with prepositions.
Churchill (or whomever) could have easily said, "I will not put up with the practive of ending a sentence with a preposition."
Alternately, he could have kept his basic sentence structure and used a verb, instead of a prepositional phrase that acted as one. "The ending of a sentence with a preposition is a practice I will not tolerate."
Nonsense. "lol", especially in sans-serif typefaces, is a bird's-eye view of a stick figure zombie. It has nothing to do with laughing.
Unfetter your ideas. Copyfree your mind.
or is it just Slashdot?
fooby12 writes "According to the Univeristy of Toronto
I always liked this one:
"Hey Billy. Come and help your uncle Jack off the horse."